Follow me conundrum

sorgesu · 22 Oct 2008, 01:12

IN the attached skp I have 4 different Follow Me set ups. 2 start with the path on an axis direction and 2 start with the path on a diagonal. In all 4 I have intentional placed the face to be extruded at some angle to the starting path. That is, in none of the situations is the face perpendicular or normal to the start of the path. In 3 of the examples, SketchUp rotates the face and forces it to be perpendicular before it starts the follow-me extrusion. In the 4th situation it does not. In fact the circular shape ends up being distorted into an oval because it is extruding in an angle. Please explain to my poor brain what is different and why.

FollowMe.skp

Daniel · 22 Oct 2008, 03:01

Susan, SU doesn't rotate the faces prior to extruding it, but rather seems to slice the ends off perpendicular to the path of extrusion; my guess is this is in case the path forms a closed loop and the extrusion needs to create a continuous shape. If you run guidelines parallel to the extrusion path to the points on the face, after extruding it you'll see the extruded shape corresponds to them (see the attachd example; all four of your extrusions did this - orthagonal projection applied in 3d space. in both examples using circular shapes, they were distorted into ovals). Finally, in your fourth example the face was rotated about the starting point in more than one direction, but if you run a guideline along it before the extrusion and then run the follow-me, you'll see the resultant face is perpendicular to the path, just like the other examples.

FollowMe[2].skp

mrjumpmanv2 · 22 Oct 2008, 04:43

There is one thing that i hate about the follow me tool and that is making spirals, i remember finding a tutorial some where but cant seen to find it agian... im making a shock for my new car model so i need a spring, any suggestions? (tutorial would help)

mrjumpmanv2 · 22 Oct 2008, 04:47

Take that back sorry =p

http://sketchup.google.com/3dwarehouse/details?mid=3c66f3fadffef99ae755a7a9974474bb&prevstart=0

thanks to who ever he is

sorgesu · 22 Oct 2008, 11:58

When Follow Me was just in beta, we all had to place the face perpendicular to the starting edge. It wouldn't work any other way. I show this excercisse to people with the very first model with the starting face flat to the red axis and therefore on an angle to the starting segment, because intuitively, they beleive that is the way to get a flat back. But SketchUp appears to rotate that face just the same way that we had to do it when it was in beta.

Thanks Daniel for that explanation. What you are saying, therefore, if I undestand correctly, is that any face that I start not perpendicular to the path will have some distortion, even if it isn't readily evident?

Daniel · 22 Oct 2008, 12:11

Correct.

Jean Lemire · 24 Oct 2008, 18:33

Hi Susan, hi folks.

See this SU file:

FollowMe2.skp
It is funny, it uploaded without problem. I have be trying to upload it since the last 3 days, as well as the next one that definitively will not upload.